Your Words Here

For years, one of the best ways to make a living as a writer (if you didn’t want to go into academia) was to become an ad copywriter. They heyday of print was flush with opportunities to make bank off billboards and publications. At The Paris Review Daily, Dan Piepenbringlooks back on the ad copy of Fay Weldon, who gave the UK, among other things, the slogan “Vodka makes you drunker quicker.” (Related: Hope Mills on working for a creative agency.)

Thomas Beckwith
is a staff writer for The Millions and an MFA candidate at Johns Hopkins. Prior to coming to Baltimore, he studied literature and worked in IT while living in Dublin, Ireland. You can find him on Twitter at @tdbeckwith.

Punctuation can be as important as the prose. At Vulture,Kathryn Schultz discusses the five best punctuation marks in literature. The list includes this delightful parenthetical from Lolita, "My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three...”

At Full-Stop, Nicholson Baker talks with David Burr Gerard about his new novel, Henry James and the envy he feels for Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald. (Related: our own Bill Morris reviewed Baker's House of Holes.)